Sore Sight For My Eyes...

We had a long weekend this week and Monday was a beautiful holiday.... so we had a few friends over for a few quiet dinner in the evening. I haven’t seen Josh and his wife for almost a year and it was good catching up. To my surprise, Josh and Bev rocked up….. in a Harley!!!! We couldn’t believe our eyes! Josh… the quiet accountant! Anyway, lots had happened in a year, according to them and they decided to break out of their shell, mundane lifestyle and all, to try something adventurous. Well, they have our support cos I see them so much happier and chattier now! I kinda enjoyed seeing a shiny bike at my spanking new driveway too, I must admit. Soon, it was getting late and Josh and Bev had to go, after all, it was quite a ride back to Joondalup. When we went out to the bike, to my horror, we noticed a patch of black ink-like patch on my new driveway!Josh was very apologetic, and so was Bev. My heart was aching from seeing that oil stain. I know I am going to have a tough time removing it. Anyway, being a bike aficionado, Josh said he would have to get straight to getting it fixed right away. Oh how he treated his Harley like his baby….
After cleaning up the mess (no offence, Josh!) I started surfing the web to see where I could get stuff for bikes like Josh’s. I came up with this cool new webpage where you can get over 30,000 different motorcycle parts and accessories to fully customise your ride. They even have brand names up to 60% off for all makes and models, Cruisers, Harleys, Sport Bikes, & Goldwings. I’m sure with that, Josh will be able to find the perfect way to show his individual style or at least, getting it fixed!

Housewarming Present!

My dear friends chipped in and got me a beatiful WMF pots. Simply love them. We use WMF cutlery at home and these complete the set! I guess that means I have to start cooking more then huh...

Mika and My Kids

I bought Mika's newest album "The Boy Who Knew Too Much" and within a day, Bryan was singing along some songs. There's something really catchy about Mika's music. I have to admit, he's not like some regular singer... he's got a fusion of Freddy Mercury, a bit of Smash Mouth, a hint of the style from his previous album... but that's just my opinion. My kids are just so crazy with the CD now that everytime they get into my car, Bryan will say "can I listen to new Mika please?" Caitlyn's not too keen on Mika's drawings of voodoo dolls though........

Now I can put "Life in Cartoon Motion" back into the folder... it has earned its well deserved rest.

Family Ties

This year is a very memorable year for me. Firstly, my dear sister and her family came to visit. We've not seen each other for about 5 years! So with all of us under one roof, we took photos.... tonnes of them. Here are a few of them.

Here's me with the kids...

Elbis

Hansem tak?

I'm in the process of finding a nice one among the lot of have it printed, enlarged and hung on the wall in the house. Now which one to choose leh?

Guess Who?

See what my cheeky son did? He loves to take photos with my camera and have his grubby fingers all over my lens. BTW, I still can't close the lens fully cos there's some Mamee noodle bits stuck at the corner. Time to upgrade!

Finally! D24 Durians

Don't scoff ok?... This is the best deal you can ever get around here. Sure you can get the Thai durians on the supermarket shelves but you know, it's really scary how you can SEE the fruit and you can hold the fruit up to your nose but you can't smell its durian-ness? For AUD7 odd bucks, you can get 6 or 7 meaty seeds in there. You have to thaw it first and also remove it from the vacuum pack... Oh I miss the real king of the fruit...

New Noodle Dish In Bryan's Exclusive Menu

His food repertoire is already limited enough and of all things in the world to choose to be in his exclusive food club list, it's this.... I'm next to tearing my hair out.... You know, the weird thing is that he won't drink a drop of water while eating it and the spice doesn't even bother him. After that, he'll calmly drink his water and finish. No SSSSSSSSSSSSSSS at all...... just like papa, who finds it too hot to handle.... I see the Indian in my son.

Everything's Coming Up Roses and Dinosaurs...

Our dear friends, Anne and Gary presented us with a nice basket of flowers when we moved in and straight away, Bryan saw Dinotopia. Not bad, considering his imagination's pretty limited.

Within 5 minutes of placing the flowers on the chest, Bryan took out his dinosaurs and started to decorate the basket.

I don't know if you can see it, there are actually plastic snakes all over the foliage as well. Here's a close-up..... Oh the things he sees through his eyes.....

It Doesn't Snow in Perth..... It Hails

I found these few shots taken at the old house a month ago. When it hails... it sure is damn noisy and then, you'll see stuff like this littering the yard... The white bits are little sheets of ice on the paving. At side view, you can actually see sago-looking ice on the ground.. Imagine this bertabur-ed all over the garden.... And if you're outside in the garden, it is painful when it hits you... I'd know... I've been pelted by Mother Nature before. Ouch!

Bryan's Lemon Cake

Bryan had the whole day off at home on Thursday and he egged me into baking a lemon cake.... it was either this or baking trays of gingerbread men.... He helped mix the cake up, he took all the photos except for the last one and with the help of his super-vision, he helped look at the cake while it was baking... updating me with reports every 5 minutes from "look it's cooking like in Cooking Mama!" to "It turned into chocolate cake!"..... No, I didn't burn it, it just turned orange brown....

Ahhhhh... Nothing Like The Smell Of Manure Early In The Morning.....

The strip of garden behind the garage door is an uninterrupted, narrow with nothing but sand...

So after dropping Bryan off to school, I decided against driving all the way to Bunnings and settled for Big W just down the road instead. Bought soil conditioner, manure mix, some seedlings and off I went home to get started. But before that, I gasak-ed all the limestone bricks from Bunnings on Tuesday at 70% discount and lined them up to form a little retaining margin. Here you can see... just sand.... not a worm in sight.

After digging in the soil conditioner and the fertilizer and a generous shower, this was how it looked like...

First I planted the chives........

Then this Sandgroper tomato....

Then the capsicums

One more Big Mama Capsicum and lastly, the sweet corn. And at the end of Day 1 of gardening, Lady Greenthumb stood back, took in the view....and went into the house to have a scrubdown because she found manure in her hair... Yikes...

3 Days After Moving In...

The theater was the kids' most important room.... so it was one of the first ones to be set up. Notice the bunny ears on the TV? We couldn't receive any Free-to-air at all... cos the house is Smart wired and we didn't have any set top boxes. So the kids had to rely on DVDs or the Wii to amuse themselves... Dare they complain?

We finally managed to put most of the stuff away by day 3. Not bad, considering we opened threw away all empty boxes by the end of week 1 and we could park our cars in the garage by the end of day 3. We get to see some floor here...

Here's Bryan at the dining table

Bryan's room

Therapy room

Cait's bed

Below is my study... the last one to take shape....

Kitchen

So as you can see, there was some sort of order after the initial chaos.

I applaud Derrick for working really hard on getting the skirtings done. In order for the skirting to fully stick on to the wall, he put some paving bricks (wrapped in newspaper) against it after Liquid-Nailing the board to the wall. Ah, my little Handyman.

No Order in THIS Chaos!

Before mom's bed was put in.... mess on the carpet floor.

After mom's bed was placed..... mess STILL on the carpet floor

Before Cait's bed.... mess on her floor....

After Cait's furniture was placed.. mess was STILL on her floor....

Before: Living room... mess at the side, in front of kitchen island...

After furniture... mess still on the floor.....

Before my bed......

After my bed was put in... still same mess

My sanctuary

The Laundry room... Now you see what I have been busy with in the last few weeks? I'll post more AFTER photos soon.